This blog is looking for wisdom, to have and to share. it is also looking for other rare character traits like good humor, courage, and honor. It is not an easy road, because all of us fall short. But God is love, forgiveness and grace. Those who believe in Him and repent of their sins have the promise of His Holy Spirit to guide us and show us the Way.

Monday, March 20, 2017

"Consolidate and shut down departments"?

At The Federalist, Ned Ryun writes,

...It’s time for Republicans to have a reality check: do you really think that fewer than 5,000 appointees can win against 2.8 million federal government employees who have a vested interest in absolutely nothing changing? Maybe, if an administration had 20 years, but it doesn’t. It has four, maybe if they’re lucky eight, years, and as history has shown us, the odds of any party getting three straight terms of a single party in the White House are fairly slim. We have already seen bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Justice, and State Department not only promise, but also begin to resist any reforms from the Trump administration.

...All government employees, which numbered nearly 4 million in 1939, number over 22 million today, with nearly three million federal employees and the rest state and local (and that excludes military).

But it’s worse than simply having millions of federal government employees trying to outlast a Republican administration. The overwhelming majority of those federal employees who donated to a presidential campaign, more than 95 percent, gave money to Hillary Clinton. Ninety-nine percent of contributions from State Department employees went to Clinton in the 2016 elections. You can be sure they aren’t excited to be working for Trump.

So my advice to President Trump is this: don’t play the game by the current rules. Change the rules by which the game is played. It’s time to cut the leviathan of government down to size. Trump’s hiring freeze is a good step in the right direction. It stops one of the reinforcing loops. But he needs to reverse the loop and cut the federal workforce by no less than 25 percent in four years. Trump should then consolidate and shut down departments.

...Philosophical changes take time. Structural changes can spur those, and Trump can put his mark on American history by truly changing the rules by which the game is played. The administration and Republicans in power must see the pitfalls previous administrations failed to avoid. Those administrations decided government really wasn’t so bad once they got the reins, and if we’re not careful, the swamp might start to seem like a hot tub.

...President Trump and the GOP have a chance to conserve the original principles of the country, that government is limited to protect the rights of the people, not provide them everything they want or need. If Trump can change the rules, he’ll change history.